The fact of Pentecost was immediately explained as that outpouring of the Spirit upon all flesh which was to mark the establishment of the Messianic kingdom (Ac S'^-^^ S^'- ^-). It stood directly related to tlie event of which the Apostles were the chosen witnesses, the Resurrection of Jesus, whereby He was exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour unto the remission of sins (Ac 2^- ^), of which, according to Hebrew expectation, the kingdom was to be the home {e.ff. Jer 31, Ezk Se'^-'"). The assurance that Christ was the ever present source of forgiveness gave its supreme significance to the Cross by which He entered into His glory (Jn 12^-). Later theologians have been charged with ' placing the emphasis too exclusively upon the death of Jesus as the means of redemption' (H. L. Wild, Contcntio Veritatis, Essay iii.). But the evidence of the NT is in-esistible. It is true that the earliest sermons lay stress rather upon the fact of the Resurrection, but always as closely following upon the Death, which, though inflicted by His enemies, resulted from the determinate counsel of God (Ac 2^), who glorified ' his Servant ' Jesus. The frequent repeti- tion of this OT expression {-irais SeoO) in the early chapters of Acts (3"- '^ 4"- *'), taken in connexion with explicit references to the things which God foreshadowed by the prophets that His Messiah should suffer (Ac 2=^ 3» 4"- '■^-'^ 13^' ; cf. 1 Co 15^ 1 P 1"), leaves no room for doubt that Philip the Evangelist was not alone in beginning from the picture of Jehovah's Suttering Servant to preach Jesus (Ac 8''), but that tlie Apostles gave their witness to the Resurrection by preaching what St. Paul called ' Christ crucified ' (1 Co l-^, cf. Gal S'). The Crucifixion was regarded neither as a bare fact nor as the symbol of a theological system, but as a 'gospel,' an event whose reality lay in its signifi- cance, a message of Divine favour and forgiveness. The central fact of Christ's life and work was com- plex, consisting of both the Cross and the Resur- rection. The NT considers neither apart. The redeeming efficacy is attached to eadi in turn. While, according to the compressed formula in which St. Paul expresses the conlcjil of liis .uosiiel, ' Christ died for our sins and rose iiuuii Un; third day' (1 Co 15'- ■*), the common form oi tlir I'ctrine preaching represents God as raising iiji Jesus ' for
to give repentance and remission of sins ' (Ac 5™- s' ; cf. 232-3S 31=- =8, 1 P pi 3=', also Ro 4^ and 1 Co 15"). But it was the Cross that tended to fix itself as the central fact, and therefore the characteristic symbol of Christendom. It is the figure of Him ' who bare our sins in his Iwdy on the tree ' which dominates the First Epistle of Peter (1 P 2"). And the 2nd cent. Gospel according to Peter has contrived with singular fidelity to the Apostle's mind to give an imaginative picture of the Resur- rection, wherein the Cross is curiously blended with the rending tomb (Gospel ace. to Peter, § 10, ed. Robinson and James). With St. Paul the gospel of Christ, which is the fixed point in liis teaching (Gal l'', 1 Co 15', 1 Ti 1", 2 Ti 2\ the touchstone of all preaching (Gal !*• ^ 1 Ti P 6'), proclaimed alike to Jew and Gentile (1 Co 1=^), de- livered whether to St. Peter or to himself as the deposit of Christian truth (1 Co 3", 2 Ti I'''- '•■), is 'the word of the cross' (1 Co I"'*'). So remark- able is the unanimity of the two great primary preachers of Christianity that it leaves no room to question the statement of Hamaok ( What is Chris- tianity ? Eng. tr. Lect. ix.) that ' the primitive com- munity called Jesus its Lord becau.se He sacrificed His life for it, and because its members were con- vinced that He had been raised from the dead and was then sitting at the right hand of God.'
To this must be added the general symmetry of the NT and the evidence of Christian institutions and Church History. The story of the Passion is out of all proportion to the rest of the Synoptic narrative, as given in each of the three Gospels, unless the foreground is rightly occupied by the Cross. And here the Fourth Gospel, though it emphasizes the function of revelation in the incar- nate life of the Son of God, is found in close and almost unexpected agreement with its predecessors. The Apocalypse rings with the praises of ' the Lamb' (Rev S"""- '2- is 710.14-17 107-12 141-5 196-9 . gf. p 13*). The Epistle to the Hebrews, though it opens with one of the classical Christological passages, yet makes the Death of Jesus the pivot of its teaching (He 2"). And the Epistle to the Romans, ^vhich elaborates the great argument of Justifica- tion through a crucified and risen Saviour, is central to the theology of St. Paul.
Midway between the NT and Church History, as related in point of evidential value to either, come the Creed and Sacraments. The former represents the inviolable basis of the word con- centrated in catechetical teaching. That its em- pha,sis rested upon the Cross is apparent not only from such primitive formulae as the Apostles' Creed, but from the NT itself (1 Co 15»- \ 1 Ti l'^). Baptism is the initiatory Christian rite, and whether it conveys or only represents the forgive- ness of sins, stood from the first in close relation to the Death and Resurrection of Christ (Mt 28i», Mk 16'5- 16, Ac 2^ 813- 16.30 918 1047. 48 igss 1950016, Ro &■*, Gal 326- ", Eph 4^-6, Col 2'=, Tit 3"-6, 1 P3='; cf. Jn 35, Ac 1116, 1 Co I0=, He &-^ 10-, 1 Jn 5^-% The Eucharist is the Christian counterpart of the sacrifice of the Passover, which commemorated the deliverance of God's peoijle from Egypt ; it is associated by the terms of its celebration with the Lord's Passion, and employs language of sacrificial import (Mt 26=6-°-8, Mk 14=^-=*, Lk 22W- », 1 Co ll'*-" lOM-22 [for Tpixefa Ki/p£ou=Suffioa-TV«', cf. Mai 1'], cf. Jn 65=-6a [see Westcott, ad loc], Ex 1'23', He 13'").